By Paul
January 31 2005

Fiji, South Africa and Australia will all visit Cardiff next November as part of Wales's Autumn internationals. There had been hope that the All Blacks would also return this year to commemorate the hundredth anniversary since their invincibles were famously defeated.

Autumn 2005 should prove a far tougher one than that of the year before, with the one sided nature of defeats over Japan and Romania unlikely to be repeated against the far tougher proposition of South Sea Islanders Fiji.

However rugby fans will be disappointed that a combined Pacific Islanders side could not have visited instead on 12/13 November, but do not rule out a Friday night match on the eleventh against the Fijians.

Australia visit the Millennium stadium a week later, it will be the Wallabies first test in Wales since winning 21-13 three years ago. South Africa return after only a years absence on November 19th or 20th.

Spread over just three weeks this year, the Autumn internationals should prove to be far less disruptive than the ones this season, which saw all other rugby more or less grind to a halt, which became fairly tedious during the build up to the Japanese and Romanian games.

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